Quotes about song
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“At the end of the day what I'm most proud of in our record is that every part and movement and sound of ever song moves me.”

Nathan Leone (1981) American musician

Parting

“I wrote a little song for you
With a melody I'd borrowed put to words that didn't rhyme
To repeat what you already knew;
As the stones thrown at your window tapped in syncopation,
You kept a distance out of fear you'd break,
But what good's a single windchime, hanging quiet all alone?”

Aaron Weiss

In a Market Dimly Lit.
Brother, Sister (2006)

Fear

“This is old song
That will not declare itself…”

Wallace Stevens book Harmonium

"Metaphors of a Magnifico"
Harmonium (1923)

“Do we really have to wander around apologizing for enjoying plot, just because James Wood and a few dozen other arch-aesthetes sniff at it? It's like being careful not to sing pop songs in the shower because some guy in the local alt-weekly is a music snob.”

Patrick Nielsen Hayden (1959) American science fiction editor, fanzine publisher, essayist, reviewer, anthologist, and teacher

"Oh No Lev Grossman No", in Making Light (30 August 2009)

Music, Guy, Singing

“(The story behind the name Celldweller) is hard to trace back completely but I guess in 1992 sometime, I wrote a song called 'Helldweller' and my studios and even places I have lived have traditionally been in basements. In cellars, so to speak. I am also a fairly introverted guy and I hardly ever come out. It was almost a joke initially from family and friends calling me a cell dweller or a cellar dweller. It evolved into Celldweller although that name holds more significance than that. Celldweller is more symbolic of an internal bondage, being restricted and retained internally so the name has many meanings. At the end of the day, it rolls off the tongue very easily so there it is.”

Klayton (1970) American musician

"Klayton Scott - Celldweller," (2003)

Family, Guy

“Dicko: Hayley, hair looks great by the way. Curls are good for you. I've got to say, look, I don't think you're a natural at this. You have to work really hard at everything you do and it's pleasing to see the way you're moving in the right direction. I think that was a really tough song to chose. Some of those timings in there, it was a bit like a maths exam at times for me trying to keep up. But I think it's a really good style for you. That type of song. That type of artist, George as well. The only problem I have with you, I've had it for the past few weeks, is I can see you concentrating and I can hear you thinking about what you're trying to do as you're doing it and I don't know. Sometimes I just think if you could switch all of that off and just let yourself go a bit I think you'd be a lot better for it. But that was very good.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Final Performances, Final 8

Way, Nature, Problem, Thinking

“I used to see songwriting like editing a film or something. You can edit music like you can edit a film. Or if I was painting or making a picture or something, that night I could sit down and write a song. I think it really helps to break things up. Sometimes when you sit down to write songs, you write three or four songs in a row feeling the same sort of vibe. But if you stop in-between that time and change something, you break the pattern – you prevent yourself from unconsciously falling into a format.”

M.I.A. (1975) British recording artist, songwriter, painter and director

Interview http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2008/05/qa_with_mia.php to Westword (2008) Sourced quotes

Music, Feeling, Thinking, Change

“Writing, madam, is a mechanic part of wit. A gentleman should never go beyond a song or a billet.”

George Etherege The Man of Mode

Act IV, sc. i
The Man of Mode (1676)

Parting

“There's a lyric in the middle of the song that says, "I want to decide between survival and bliss." Basically I'm talking about the difference between really being alive and really embracing the reason why I'm here on this earth versus my just being asleep and sleep walking and accepting the status quo and accepting somewhat of a suffering mentality to being here. It really is my responsibility to distinguish the difference between the two and choose which one I want. It's so easy for me to want to not take responsibility for my life and relinquish it and look outside of myself for the answers that I know very well are within me. It's so scary to be silent and it's so scary to go within, until I do it. And once I'm doing it, I just wonder why I wasn't doing this all the time. So that decision to be fully alive is one that is preceded by some pretty intense decisions and some choices and responsibility-taking that at times can be very intimidating, again, before I do it.”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

On her song "Precious Illusions", in "Alanis Morissette talks about songs from 'Under Rug Swept'", in MSO (23 Jun 2002) http://web.archive.org/web/20020623040236/http://msopr.com/mso/morissette-cutbycut.html

Life, Decision, Sleep, Suffering

“The rose looks out in the valley,
And thither will I go,
To the rosy vale, where the nightingale
Sings his song of woe.”

Gil Vicente (1456–1536) Portuguese writer

En la huerta nasce la rosa:
quiérome ir allá
por mirar al ruiseñor cómo cantavá.
En la huerta nace la rosa — "The Nightingale", as translated by John Bowring in Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain (1824), p. 316

Singing

“For a while I was most well known for that [the Janis Joplin album cover], and for “Keep on Truckin’.” That was a drawing that came out of LSD trips, and the words came from a Blind Boy Fuller song from 1935. I drew it in my sketchbook and then for Zap. It sort of caught the popular imagination. It became a horrible popular thing.”

Robert Crumb (1943) American cartoonist

"R. Crumb, The Art of Comics No. 1" http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6017/the-art-of-comics-no-1-r-crumb, The Paris Review, Summer 2010, No. 193.

Imagination, Boy, Drawing

“I like the heat the tenderness the edible the lusciousness the song of a single person the bathtub full of water to bathe myself beneath the water.... I like the wheat-fields the plough the apricots those flirts of the sun. But bread above all.”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

1942
Source: posthumous, Movements in art since 1945, p. 31: (in Gorky Memorial Exhibition, Schwabacher pp. 28)

Water, Sun, Personality

“If good music has charms to soothe the savage breast, bad music has no less powerful spells for filling the mildest breast with rage, the happiest with horror and disgust. Oh, those mammy songs, those love longings, those loud hilarities! How was it possible that human emotions intrinsically decent could be so ignobly parodied.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

“Silence is Golden,” p. 59
Do What You Will (1928)

Love, Music, Rage

“The country is so beautiful, where so many heroes had devoted their lives into it. Sorry that the Qin Emperor or the Han Wu Emperor lacks a sense for literacy; while the founders of the Tang and Song dynasties came short in style. The great man, Genghis Khan, only knew how to shoot eagles with an arrow. The past is past. To see real heroes, look around you.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Qinyuanchun ["Snow"] (沁园春•雪) (1936; first published in late 1945). Variant translation of the last stanza: "All are past and gone! / For truly great men / Look to this age alone."

Beauty, Sense, Past, Country

“It's justice that He's bringing.
It's hidden inside a song.
No one's stuck in the middle…
the battle is already won.”

Ysabella Brave (1979) American singer

"Beautiful" (08 June 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS-F2ZYGty8

Justice

“In the Greek world in which Homer's songs were sung, it was taken for granted that everyone's life is ruled by fate and chance. For Homer, human life is a succession of contingencies: all good things are vulnerable to fortune. Socrates could not accept this archaic tragic vision. He believed that virtue and happiness were one and the same: nothing can harm a truly good man. So he re-envisioned the good to make it indestructible. Beyond the goods of human life - health, beauty, pleasure, friendship, life itself - there was a Good that surpassed them all. In Plato, this became the idea of the Form of the Good, the mystical fusion of all values into a harmonious spiritual whole - an idea later absorbed into the Christian conception of God. But the idea that ethics is concerned with a kind of value that is beyond contingency, that can somehow prevail over any kind of loss or misfortune, came from Socrates. It was he who invented 'morality.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Vices of Morality: Socrates, the inventor of morality (p. 106)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Life, God, Friendship, Fate

“I did not choose my gift: too soon my heart,
Watch-like, had pointed to a later hour
Than time had reach'd: and as my years pass'd on,
Shadows and floating visions grew to thoughts,
And thoughts found words, the passionate words of song,
And all to me was poetry.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Passion, Time, Heart

“Roger: Hmm.. I don't know. I like playing at home because sleeping at home after the show is a bonus. That's really nice. I'd have to say I really like playing Japan. There's just a different level of respect or something that goes on with the fans. They're just completely animalistic and going crazy during the show and then in between songs like as soon as a song stops, it's silent 'cause they want to hear what you have to say so they can try and understand what you're saying. It's really awesome - it's great. Even in the UK and London - places like that, fans are just rabid and go completely crazy and it's always fun. I'd have to say Tokyo and London are pretty awesome”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

Home, Understanding, Sleep

“I've got my little black dress on
And if I tell myself that nothing's wrong
This doesn't have to be a sad song
Not with my little black dress on.”

Sara Bareilles (1979) American pop rock singer-songwriter and pianist

"Little Black Dress"
Lyrics, The Blessed Unrest (2013)

Sadness

“Turn up your radio and let me hear the song
Switch on your electric light
Then we can get down to what is really wrong
I long to hold you tight so I can feel you
Sweet lady of the night I shall reveal you.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Caravan
Song lyrics, Moondance (1970)

Feeling, Light, Night

“Roger: It’s exciting to play new songs live, we’ve been playing “Summon Monsters” and that’s on the new record it’s fast and got some fun fast quick bass licks that are fun to play so that’s a fun one to play live. Been getting off on that lately, and I think “Conviction Notice” is super solid live and the horn line is great. It’s fun to play new songs.”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

Thinking

“I want to write music. I want to sit down right now at the piano, and write a song that people will listen to and remember. And do the same thing every morning for the rest of my life.”

Jonathan Larson (1960–1996) American composer and playwright

tick, tick... BOOM! (1990)

Life, People, Music

“I cry all the time. In fact, I cried when we were at the Islington Academy. I got a bit teary-eyed at the crowd's reaction to our show. We were playing a song called On My Own and the response from the audience just got to me. Sometimes the love in the room is so overwhelming that I just cry. I'm not ashamed of that.”

Bert McCracken (1982) American musician

WENN staff (October 17, 2007) "McCracken: 'I Cry All the Time'", World Entertainment News Network.

Love, Time, Cry

“Worry for others— it does no good in the end.
The great Dao, all amid joy, is reborn.
In a joyous state, ruler and subject accord,
In a joyous home, father and son get along.
If brothers increase their joy, the world will flourish.
If husband and wife have joy, it's worthy of song.
What guest and host can bear a lack of joy?
Both high and low, in joy, lose their woe before long.
Ha ha ha.”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Translated by Mary Jacob[citation needed]
It is unlikely that this poem, translated by Mary Jacob, is authored by Han-shan. In comparing it with every poem in the corpus it will be found that there is not a close match. Moreover, neither the language nor the content of this poem is that of Han-shan. Most importantly, this poem does not have the appropriate number of lines for a Han-shan poem. Jacob's poem has 9 lines; there is not a single example of a 9 line poem in all of Han-shan's poetry. All of Han-shan's poems are 4, 8, 10 or 14 lines, with a few that have more than 14. Further, Jacob's poem has an odd number of lines; there is not a single example of a poem with an odd number of lines in all of Han-shan's poetry. Finally, the 9th and final line in Jacob's poem has the words “ha ha ha.” Not a single Han-shan poem has those words as a final line. Perhaps someone is having a joke?
Disputed

World, Home, Joy

“Closer to showtime, the jovial crowd now arrives in droves. Laughing. Smiling. Until they hear the melodic sounds of “This Land Is Fagland,” being sung by small children. With the most vigor, even the tiniest join in, big smiles, swaying their heads like it were the Barney the Dinosaur song. The chubby, red-haired girl actually jumps while singing—she's that happy.”

Harmon Leon

From the Bible-thumping chapter, p. 158.
The American Dream (2008)

Happiness, Children, Smile, Girl

“Heaven above is softer blue
Earth around is sweeter green;
Something lives in every hue
Christless eyes have never seen
Birds with gladder songs o'erflow
Flowers with deeper beauties shine. Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine.”

George Wade Robinson (1838–1877) Irish poet

"Loved with Everlasting Love," Baptist Hymn Book (Pasalms and & Hymns Trust, London, 1962)

Beauty, Flowers, Bird

“Sometimes, if you stand very still in the shadows of those places, you can hear songs on the wind, whispers in the trees. That is why I travel.”

Valya Dudycz Lupescu (1974) American writer

The Silence of Trees (2010)

Travel, Tree

“[The title] was the last thing that I chose, after all the songs and the cover art were finished. So none of the songs directly allude to that myth. But the main themes that emerge out of that myth are really close to the themes on the record -- mortality, decadence, an excess of water, isolation, rebirth. The myth is also significant to me because of the way that I encountered it, which relates to one of the huge events the record is about.
I also liked the power of the word itself. I liked how violent and cryptic it felt; it's such a daunting word to encounter. I like how it contrasted this finely rendered, carefully composed front cover -- the painting is information-dense, formal, and stylized; it looks the way something looks when a painter spends a year on it, which is what Benjamin [Vierling] did. So it has all this detail and carefulness to it, which was really important to me and relates very closely to the record. But I also felt like it needed some sort of ballast, or balance, next to it, to reflect the other elements of the record; its innate violence. I wanted a word that was like throwing a brick at the visual on the front cover; I liked that whenever someone looked at that cover they also had to encounter this short, weird word.”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Interview with Pitchfork (2006)

Art, Way, Water, Painting

“The compelled mother loves her child as the caged bird sings. The song does not justify the cage nor the love the enforcement.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

Article "Abortion", The Sunday Times, 21 May 1972

Love, Bird, Singing

“When Andy [Andrew Wood] died, I couldn't listen to his songs for about two years after that, and it was for that reason — his lyrics often seem as though they can tell that story. But then again, my lyrics often could tell the same one. In terms of seeing everything as a matter of life and death — if that's what you're feeling at the time, then that's what you're going to write. It's sort of a morbid exchange when somebody who is a writer like that dies, and then everyone starts picking through all their lyrics. In Kurt [Cobain]'s case, whatever he was thinking and whatever he was writing, there wasn't an arrow pointing at what his demise was. It's a stream of thought, it's a possibility — it's definitely something that somebody was feeling when they were writing. It doesn't mean that it's going to happen. But it doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't, either.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Chris Cornell: The Rolling Stone Interview, Alec Foege, Rolling Stone, 29 December 1994 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/the-rolling-stone-interview-chris-cornell-19941229, Soundgarden Era

Life, Death, Feeling, Thinking

“Disco was brand new then and there were a few jocks that had monstrous sound systems but they wouldn't dare play this kind of music. They would never play a record where only two minutes of the song was all it was worth. They wouldn't buy those types of records. The type of mixing that was out then was blending from one record to the next or waiting for the record to go off and wait for the jock to put the needle back on.”

Grandmaster Flash (1958) musician

Quoted in Rap Attack 2 (1991) by David Toop, p. 62 ISBN 1852422432

Music, Waiting

“M R Turner & A Miall, The Edwardian Song Book (Methuen, 1982)”

Fred Weatherly (1848–1929) English lawyer, author, lyricist and broadcaster

References

Books

“The odd time something happens and you go into some kind of enchantment (on stage). But you have to work very hard to get that. Most of the time you're just playing and singing the songs, and there's no guarantee that you are going to get anywhere….”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

As quoted in Can You Feel the Silence? Van Morrison: A New Biography (2003) by Clinton Heylin

Singing, Time

“Pop culture is filth. It is now completely degenerate. Why do you never hear anyone humming a current pop song any more? Because none of them is hummable, or even worth bothering to remember. What is the main topic on TV sitcoms and "dramedies"? You know what. Why do you stand in the aisle in Blockbuster muttering to yourself: "There isn't a single damn movie in here I want to watch?"”

John Derbyshire (1945) writer

Because Hollywood produces nothing but crap, crap, crap. Unpleasant Truths: A conservative view of the world today http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire080202.asp, National Review August 2, 2002.

“The local rock group down the street
Is trying hard to learn their song.
They serenade the weekend squire
Who just came out to mow his lawn.
Another pleasant valley Sunday.
Charcoal burning everywhere.
Rows of houses that are all the same.
And no one seems to care.”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

Pleasant Valley Sunday (1967), co-written with Gerry Goffin, recorded by The Monkees
Song lyrics, Singles

Learning, Housing

“Awake
Hindus:
Mother! The flowers of our worship have crowned thee! Parsees:
Mother! The flame of our hope shall surround you Mussulmans:
Mother! The sword of our love shall defend thee Christians:
Mother! The song of thy faith shall attend thee All creeds:
Shall not our dauntless devotion avail thee?
Harken! O Queen O! goddess, we hail thee!”

Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949) Indian politician, governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949

Her poem in "The Golden Treasury of Indo-Anglian Poetry, 1828-1965", p=161
Poetry

Love, Faith, Hope, Flowers

“She said, "I wanna learn a love song full of happy things."
She said, "I wanna learn a love song; won't you let me hear you sing?"
She said, "I wanna learn a love song, I wanna hear you play."
She said, "I wanna learn a love song before you go away."”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

I Wanna Learn a Love Song
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)

Love, Happiness, Learning, Singing

“at the Engvalls' home, Travis is about to play on the piano.
Engvall's son, Travis: I'm going to play you a song from Harry Potter.
Engvall: Oh, the movie?
Travis: No, the book. Here's your sign.
When telling the joke on Here's Your Sign: Live! (2004), he stops his son before he says "sign."”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Here's Your Sign, "Here's MY Sign..."

Books, Home

“I am not a good enough writer to have an agenda or come up with a message and try to put it into a song, […] It's more like you write what comes to you… You try to reflect the mood of the songs. Take 'Rearviewmirror', we start off with the music and it kinds of propels the lyrics. It made me feel like I was in a car, leaving something, a bad situation. There's an emotion there. I remembered all the times I wanted to leave…”

Eddie Vedder (1964) musician, songwriter, member of Pearl Jam

L.A. Times 5/1/94, "He Didn't Ask for All This".

Music, Cars, Feeling, Mood

“There's no reason not to stand for this song, come on, if you stand we'll buy you all ice cream”

Chris Martin (1977) musician, co-founder of Coldplay

Chris Martin, Live 2003.

“I can hear her heart beat from a thousand miles
And the heavens open every time she smiles
And when I come to her that's where I belong
Yet I'm running to her like a river's song.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Crazy Love
Song lyrics, Moondance (1970)

Smile, Time, Heart

“It is human love, not that of a god, which is glorified in the Song, and that with a wealth of detail, which rules out an allegorical interpretation.”

Robert Gordis (1908–1992) American rabbi and theologian

"The Song of Songs and Lamentations", p. 8

Love, God, Wealth

“Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world, but the heart has its beaches, its homeland, and thoughts of its own. Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings, but the heart has its seasons its evenings, and songs of its own”

Robert Hunter (1941–2019) American musician

"Eyes of the World"
Song lyrics, (1973)

World, Heart, Season

“Music is made up of a large number of individual sounds, and is either a single melody or a part-song.”

Johannes Tinctoris (1435–1511) Flemish composer

Dictionary of Musical Terms (1475)

Music, Parting

“People have kept on asking me: did he sing well? I reply, the world is a song, but we do not know whether it is a good song because we have nothing to compare it with.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

People, World, Singing

“Roger: It’s totally cool you know. We go out there and put our best foot forward and we play songs we’ve played before, and that feels like we know what’s going to happen. The crowd is going to react to it or they’re not going to react to it. If we went out there and played all new songs it would be lame.”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

Feeling

“I decided a handful of years ago that I just want to write songs that you can understand as soon as you put the record on. There’s no need to veil what’s happening in the song the way I used to.
My goal as a songwriter now is to simply write some memorable turns of phrase.”

Ben Gibbard (1976) American singer, songwriter and guitarist

Source: The Meaning Of Life, II

Way, Understanding

“O singers, resinous and soft your songs
Above the sacred whisper of the pines,
Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines,
Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs.”

Jean Toomer (1894–1967) American poet and novelist

from "Georgia Dusk"
Poems from Cane (1923)

Dreams, Christ

“I guess I'll call it sickness gone,
It's hard to say the meaning of this song.”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

Ambulance Blues, referring to the drug related death of bandmate Danny Whitten
Song lyrics, On the Beach (1974)

“If my serenade of song and story should serve as a pillow for some composer's head, as yet perhaps unborn, to dream and build on our fond melodies in his tomorrow, I have not labored in vain.”

W. C. Handy (1873–1958) American blues composer and musician

Profiles In Black http://www.theblackmarket.com/ProfilesInBlack/WCHandy.htm

Dreams

“The "new" Fleetwood Mac were singing "Don't Stop". I've got a message for the new Fleetwood Mac: DO Stop! Touring; recording; saying you're legends.
Michael Bolton, big star, popular musician, guess what? You're bald and we all know it. I don't care how long you grow your hair in the back but we all know what's happening on top. I know you sold nine million albums but guess what? I don't know anyone who's got one.
Steve Martin. What about Leap of Faith? I was going to see it but I was sick that day.
I finally sat through The Bodyguard and: [imitates the song] Iiiiiiiii-eee-iiiiiii-want my money back!”

David Spade (1964) American stand-up comedian

Spade in America, Saturday Night Live

Money, Faith, Star, Singing

“When you hear an instrumental song someone is singing over, you know right away it's wrong.”

Joe Satriani (1956) American guitar player

As quoted in BAM Magazine (6 April 1990).

Singing

“This is the song for Baby Birch.
I will never know you.
And at the back of what we've done,
there is that knowledge of you.”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Have One On Me (2010)

Knowledge, Baby

“Americans must know that we're putting the American people first again on trade, on immigration, on foreign policy. The jobs, incomes and security of the American worker will always be my first priority. No country has ever prospered that failed to put its own interests first. Both our friends and our enemies put their countries above ours and we, while being fair to them, must start doing the same. We will no longer surrender this country or its people to the false song of globalism. The nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony. I am skeptical of international unions that tie us up and bring America down, and will never enter America into any agreement that reduces our ability to control our own affairs.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, April, Foreign Policy Speech (27 April 2016)

Happiness, People, Falseness, Country

“The Spice Girls are easier to tell apart than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but that is small consolation: What can you say about five women whose principal distinguishing characteristic is that they have different names? They occupy Spice World as if they were watching it: They're so detached they can't even successfully lip-synch their own songs. During a rehearsal scene, their director tells them, with such truth that we may be hearing a secret message from the screenwriter, "That was absolutely perfect — without being actually any good." Spice World is obviously intended as a ripoff of A Hard Day's Night which gave The Beatles to the movies… the huge difference, of course, is that the Beatles were talented — while, let's face it, the Spice Girls could be duplicated by any five women under the age of 30 standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/spice-world-1998 of Spice World (23 January 1998) Reviews, Half-star reviews

Women, Truth, Secret, Age

“The trend in the north is more Punjabi folk and simple music. But, in the past, people like Naushad experimented with Hindustani classical music which I think has been completely forgotten. People don't experiment anymore and think that Hindustani classical music won't work. For me, coming from the south, it was just a little step to learn Punjabi music. The nuances are louder in Punjabi music. Songs like Mukkala muqqabla or Humma humma had more of the Tamil folk music in it.”

A. R. Rahman (1966) Indian singer and composer

The A R Rahman Chat

People, Music, Thinking, Learning

“A song is not just a collection of melodic riffs, it is an emotional statement.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

"Melodic Structure", Necros, TraxWeekly #15, 1995 http://www.novusmusic.org/traxweek.html

“Meditating were my thoughts
On the vain poetry of the bards of Brython.
Making the best of themselves in the chief convention.
Enough, the care of the smith’s sledge-hammer.
I am in want of a stick, straitened in song,
The fold of the bards, who knows it not?”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Fold of the Bards

“You may not believe it,
But I don't believe in miracles anymore.
And when I think about it,
I don't believe I ever did for sure.
All the things I've said in songs,
All the purple prose you bought from me.
Reality's just black and white.
The sentimental things I'd write
Never meant that much to me.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

This Train Don't Stop There Anymore
Song lyrics, Songs from the West Coast (2001)

Thinking, Reality

“Unless I'm wrong
I but obey
The urge of a song:
I'm—bound—away!

And I may return
If dissatisfied
With what I learn
From having died.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"Away!" (1962), st. 5,6
General sources

Learning

“Grieving, yet somehow unbending, steadfast, unafraid, the voice rose through the evening like memory, and a gust of wind blew up from the river, dimming the song, rustling the trees, then died and became still. I’ll lay in de grave and stretch out my arms … Suddenly the voice ceased, and all was quiet.
Then what I done was wrong, Lord? I said. And if what I done was wrong, is there no redemption?
I raised my eyes upward but there was no answer, only the gray impermeable sky and night falling fast over Jerusalem.”

William Styron book The Confessions of Nat Turner

Part I : Judgment Day
The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)

Tree, Memory, Night

“You know, friends, so many people have wished me congratulations on a 67-year career in baseball, and they've wished me a wonderful retirement with my family, and now, all I can do is tell you what I wish for you. May God give you, for every storm, a rainbow; for every tear, a smile; for every care, a promise; and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life seems, a faithful friend to share; for every sigh, a sweet song, and an answer for each prayer. You and I have been friends for a long time, but I know, in my heart, I've always needed you more than you've ever needed me, and I'll miss our time together more than I can say. But, you know what, there will be a new day, and, eventually, a new year, and when the upcoming winter gives way to spring, ooh, rest assured, once again, it will be time for Dodger baseball. So, this is Vin Scully wishing you a pleasant good afternoon, wherever you may be.”

Vin Scully (1927) American sports broadcaster

Scully's final sign-off as a Dodger broadcaster.

Life, God, People, Family

“If you have never been to a live show of mine, then expect almost a full hour of great songs interspersed with hilarious anecdotes about my career, and lengthy clips from my embarrassingly successful channel 4 television shows.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV recordings of stage shows, Derren Brown – Enigma (2011), Derren Brown – Enigma tour brochure

Success

“The songs are in your eyes.
I see them when you smile.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

Lyrics, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004)

Smile

“I am the entertainer, I've come to do my show
You've heard my latest record, it's been on the radio
It took me years to write it, they were the best years of my life
It was a beautiful song but it ran too long
If you're gonna have a hit you gotta make it fit
So they cut it down to 3:05.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

The Entertainer.
Song lyrics, Streetlife Serenade (1974)

Life, Beauty

“My songs bring images to the listener's mind. The object is to transport my listeners to another place, some place sacred and spiritual that will make them glad they took the ride.”

Bradley Joseph (1965) Composer, pianist, keyboardist, arranger, producer, recording artist

Official Bio http://www.bradleyjoseph.com/About_Bradley.asp and Reflections Bio http://www.serve.com/gregl7/bradley.htm

“Petal, like a persistent song phrase, like a few stubborn lines of verse memorized in childhood. The needle was stuck.”

Annie Proulx book The Shipping News

Source: The Shipping News (1993), P. 53

Childhood

“These pieces have been and will, I think, during my life, continue to be to me the sources of daily and exalted pleasures. The tender and the sublime emotions of the mind were never before so wrought up by the human hand. I am not ashamed to own that I think this rude bard of the North the greatest poet that has ever existed. Merely for the pleasure of reading his works, I am become desirous of learning the language in which he sung, and of possessing his songs in their original form.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles McPherson, February 25, 1773, cited from H. A. Washington (ed.) The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Maury, 1853) vol. 1, pp. 195-6.
Criticism

Life, Pleasure, Thinking, Learning

“I'm a perfectionist. I like to get it right. I like to get it good. And you know, writing songs is not -- it's not the kind of thing that you can count on every day. You never know what's going to come or if it's going to come. So you -- you know, it's an uncertain kind of a thing.”

Neil Diamond (1941) American singer-songwriter

Larry King interview (2003)

“In the quiet silent seconds I turned off the light switch
And I came down to meet you in the half light the moon left.
While a cluster of night jars sang some songs out of tune,
A mantle of bright light shone down from a room.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Come Down in Time
Song lyrics, Tumbleweed Connection (1970)

Light, Night

“And I don't give a damn about a greenback dollar
Spend it fast as I can for a wailin' song and a good guitar
The only things that I understand, oh yeah.”

Hoyt Axton (1938–1999) American country singer

Greenback Dollar (1963)

Understanding

“And when the reckless crowd among
I speak of one sweet art,
How lightly can I name the song,
Which yet has wrung my heart!
That lute and heart alike have chords
Not to be spoken of in words”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(1826-2) The Wish
The Monthly Magazine

Art, Heart

“You know, of all the songs I have ever sung, that is the one I've had the most requests not to.”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

Afterword to "I Hold Your Hand In Mine"
Songs by Tom Lehrer (1953)

“Hopeless of all he dared to hope so long,
The music born within him dies away;
Even the song he loved becomes a pain,
Full-freighted with a yearning all in vain.”

Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908) American poet, critic, and essayist

"Hope Deferred".

Love, Pain, Hope, Music

“I who am blind can give one hint to those who see - one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf to-morrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which Nature provides.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Three Days to See (1933)

Pleasure, World, Beauty, Music

“However, he had a particular bent for mythology and carried his researches in it to such a ridiculous point that he would test professors of Greek literature – whose society, as I have already mentioned, he cultivated above all others – by asking them questions like: "Who was Hecuba's mother?" – "What name did Achilles assume when he was among the girls?" – "What song did the Sirens sing?"”
Maxime tamen curavit notitiam historiae fabularis usque ad ineptias atque derisum; nam et grammaticos, quod genus hominum praecipue, ut diximus, appetebat, eius modi fere quaestionibus experiebatur: "Quae mater Hecubae, quod Achilli nomen inter virgines fuisset, quid Sirenes cantare sint solitae."

Sueton book The Twelve Caesars

Cf. Thomas Browne, Urn Burial, Ch. V
Source: The Twelve Caesars, Tiberius, Ch. 70

Girl, Literature, Question, Singing

“My eyes has been my camera taking pictures of the world and my songs has been my messages that I tried to scatter across the back sides and along the steps of the fire escapes and on the window sills and through the dark halls…”

Woody Guthrie (1912–1967) American singer-songwriter and folk musician

Bound For Glory (1943)

World

“One hundred years from now Beatles songs may be so well known that every child will learn them as nursery rhymes, and most people will have forgotten who wrote them. They will have become sufficiently entrenched in popular culture that it will seem as if they've always existed, like Oh Susannah, This Land Is Your Land, and Frère Jacques.”

Daniel Levitin (1957) American psychologist

The Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jun/02/comment.music (June 1, 2007)

People, Learning

“Like I said, I grew up with punk, and the lyrics of the songs I liked were about reality, and young people were expressing themselves by playing music. It's always been more about attitude, for me. Expressing yourself within society.”

Mattin (1977) Spanish musician

Interview by Dan Warburton (July 2009)

People, Music, Reality

“Raise a song for her, O Muse!
The violet-crownèd maiden,
And praise her soft throat's changing hues,
Her low voice, laughter-laden. Sing yet again her thousand charms,
Her eyes entrancing splendour,
Her swarthy cheeks and supple arms
And bosom dark and tender. Yea, sing forevermore of her,
My mistress soft-beguiling,
Fairest of all who are, or were,
My Sappho, sweetly-smiling.”

Alcaeus of Mytilene (-600–-560 BC) ancient Greek poet

"No More for Lycus", as translated by James S. Easby-Smith

Smile, Laughter, Change, Singing

“I used to be more dogmatic, more disciplined and segregated about my time to work; now I have to jump from one song to another, or score a scene in a movie, then get out the door for a performance at a moment's notice. The illusion of control over my schedule is totally obsolete. There is no way to say, "I can't do that right now." It's "Yes, thank you for the opportunity, whatever it takes to get the music out there."”

Sophie B. Hawkins (1967) American musician

Quotations from SophieBHawkins.com

Music, Way, Time

“Now we'll start the song of the wild man who lives on the mountain top, who does not want to be seen
let us now start that song without words, without music, come on..
(let's not do anything for at least ten minutes)
That's the spirit, there he comes, the song of the inner voice, the song of the primitive man”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

a poem of Karel Appel, 1981; from Karel Appel. The Colourful Stranger. Poems and Drawings (Karel Appel. De kleurige onbekende. Gedichten en tekeningen), Amsterdam, 1986

Music, Mountain

“I met Lindsey in high school in San Francisco. We had gone to some party and he was sitting in the middle of this gorgeous living room playing a song. I walked over and stood next to him, and the song was "California Dreaming," and I just started singing with him. And so I just threw in my Michelle Phillips harmony, and he was so beautiful. And then I didn't really see him again until two years later, when he called me and asked me if I wanted to be in his rock 'n' roll band, which I didn't even know existed. And within two or three months we were opening for Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, all the San Francisco bands. Two years later, we packed up and moved to Los Angeles with about 12 demos.”

Stevie Nicks (1948) American singer and songwriter, member of Fleetwood Mac

"Blonde on Blonde", SPIN, Vol. 13, http://books.google.com/books?id=G-86CzNjg9cC No. 7 (October 1997), p. 92

School, Beauty, Dreams, Angels

“My Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few
Who fitly shalt conceive thy reasoning,
Of such hard matter dost thou entertain;
Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring
Thee to base company (as chance may do),
Quite unaware of what thou dost contain,
I prithee, comfort thy sweet self again,
My last delight! tell them that they are dull,
And bid them own that thou art beautiful.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Epipsychidion

Dedication
Epipsychidion (1821)

Fear, Beauty, Art, Chance

“When squint-eyed Slander plies the unhallow'd tongue,
From poison'd maw when Treason weaves his line,
And Muse apostate (infamy to song!)
Grovels, low muttering, at Sedition's shrine.”

James Beattie (1735–1803) Scottish poet, moralist and philosopher

The Judgment of Paris (1765), stanza 109.

“We established [The Gloria Estefan Foundation] in 1993, because I was getting so many pitches from charities that I thought the best way to maximize our charity dollars was to establish a foundation, where you can do so many things. [The royalties from] four of my songs go directly to my foundation, and I don't have to bother people for money. I have been funding it myself all these years, from diffent concerts that I do that pay right to my foundation. It's what I love to do. It's something that makes me very happy... [The foundation has helped] from small things to large things. Every time there has been a natural disaster, we, thought the American Red Cross, have helped. Not just here, but in Nicaragua and Honduras. Obviously, Miami is very close to my heart.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

cbs4.com (February 9, 2007)
2007, 2008

Love, Money, Happiness, People

“[singing the song her therapist told her to improvise in order to "let her anxieties out"] If I keep the kitchen floor clean, no one will die!”

Maria Bamford (1970) American actress and comedian

The Now Show (2006)

Singing

“The little red lark, like a rosy spark
Of song, to his sun-burst flies;
But till you are risen, earth is a prison,
Full of my captive sighs.”

Alfred Perceval Graves (1846–1931) Anglo-Irish poet, songwriter, and school inspector

Song, "The Little Red Lark".

Sun

“Christ, you're dragging me out for that? I can tell you what they'll say. They'll drag out the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: kiddie porn, terrorists, pirates, and the mafia. They'll tell us that any tool for communicating that they can't tap, log, and switch off is irresponsible. They'll tell us we're stealing from ISPs. It's what they say every time someone tries this: Philly, New York, London. All around the world same song.”

Cory Doctorow Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (2005)

World, Communication, Time, Christ

“Whenever I get dumped, I nail the door shut so that no one can come inside, get a towel and clip it around my neck so it's like a Superman cape, take off my shoes so I can slide across the room, and…get a fake mic, like a celery stick or a pen, and I play any record that features the vocalist Ronnie James Dio. And you can just pretend you're Dio, because on every album he does, he has minimum one, usually three, *EVIL WOMAN LOOK OUT!*- songs. And if you wanna point like Dio, it's a three-finger point. (heavy metal voice) 'The exit is that way. Evil LURKS! Evil lurks in twilight! Dances in the DARK! Evil woman! Just WALK AWAY!”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Shoe, Way, Evil, Dance

“When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.”

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) English poet

Song, st. 1 (1862).

Sadness, Tree, Grass, Singing

“This is sad. I just think it’s a little ridiculous we are still only looking at the surface of one another. Red hair? Blue hair? Pink? Blonde? Short? Long? Whatever. We might as well shave our heads. Hair has nothing to do with the reason we playing music. It’s a style. Something that will never last as long as the songs we play and the words we sing. Listen up ladies in bands, I’m so proud to be one of you and I don’t care if we all look exactly alike or if we are all carbon copies of each other. We have things to say and it’s up to us to get people to not just look but to LISTEN!”

Hayley Williams (1988) American singer-songwriter and musician

Hayley on her Tumblr talking about Nikki Simmons (lead singer of the rock/metal upcoming band Morningside http://www.facebook.com/themorningside) who was being cyber-bullied because she looks like Hayley. http://yelyahwilliams.tumblr.com/post/8459667145

People, Sadness, Music, Thinking